P. 50 There is an unaccountable antipathy to clever women. Almost all men
profess to be afraid of bluestockings - that is, of women who have cultivated
their minds; and hold up as a maxim, that there is no safety in matrimony,
or even in the ordinary intercourse of society, except with females of plain
understandings. The general idea seems to be, that of a dull ordinary woman,
or even a fool, is more easily managed than a woman of spirit and sense,
an that the acquirements of the husband ought never to be obviously inferior
to those of his wife. If these propositions were true, there would be some
show of reason for avoiding clever women. But I am afraid they rest on no
good grounds. Hardly any kind of fool can be so easily managed, as a person
of even first-rate intellect; while the most of the species are much more
untractable. A dull fool is sure to be obstinate-obstinate in error as well
as in propriety; so that the husband is every day provoked to find that
she willfully withholds him from acting rightly in the most trifling, and
perhaps also the most important, things. Then the volatile fool is full
of whim and caprice, and utterly defies every attempt that may be made by
her husband to guide her a right. In the one case, his life is imbittered
for days, perhaps, by the sulkiness of his partner; in the other, he is
chagrined by the fatal consequences of her levity. Are these results so
much to be desired, that a man should marry beneath the rank of his own
understanding, in order to secure them? I rather apprehend that cowardice
in this case, as in most others, is only the readiest way to danger. As
for the rest of the argument, I would be far from saying, that to marry
a woman much superior to one's self in intellect, is a direct way to happiness.
I must insist, however, that there is more safety for a man of well-regulated
feelings, in the partnership of a superior than of an inferior woman. In
the former case, I verily believe, his own understanding is likely to be
more highly estimated than in the other. In the first place, he is allowed
the credit of having had the sense at least to choose a good wife. In the
second, he has counsel and example always at hand, for the improvement of
his own appearances before society. The very superiority, however, of his
wife, ensures that she will be above showing off the disadvantage of her
husband: she will rather seek to conceal his faults, and supply his deficiencies,
for her own credit. Now, what sense a fool has, she must always show it,
even though sure to excite ridicule from its being so little.